The Yin-Yang Relationship Of SEO & PPC

Search-Engine-Optimisation and Pay-Per-Click have a tightly knit relationship despite operating in vastly different ways. PPC and SEO aim to provide greater visibility for websites on search engine results pages (SERP’s) in order to drive additional traffic and increase the performance of a website in relation to its key performance indicators.

Often the different elements of digital are seen as completely separate entities when in reality they should be used in conjunction to compliment each other. SEO and PPC are naturally paired as search engine marketing tools used to drive traffic. Despite this it is relatively uncommon that SEO and PPC are used in conjunction to inform an integrated online marketing strategy.

The first step in creating an integrated strategy is to identify both the benefits and constraints of each channel and how they each compensate for the other’s constraints:

Pay-Per-Click

Search-Engine-Optimisation

Traffic Costs

More Costly: Costs of Media Spends

No costs for Traffic

Presence on the page

Top three positions above the organic listings; seven more to the right side of the page

10 listings below the PPC

Time Until Effect

Almost immediately

Long Term Strategy: Delayed response time of several months

Quantifiable

Completely data driven

Less Predictable: Requires speculation to forecast the effects

Sitelinks

Full customisation

It is possible to demote unwanted sitelinks but not to choose which sitelinks appear and in what order

Easily Identifiable

Less Trusted: Noterised as ads and easily identifiable

Seen as more relevant

Keyword Targeting

Can adjust keywords easily based on performance

Requires site integrated and therefore harder to modify

Intrusivity

More Intrusive: Remarketing ads that ‘follow’ you

Designed to provide the best results upon searching

Click-Through-Rates

Lower CTR

Higher CTR

Scalability

Possible but expensive; reducing ROI

Easily Scalable: Larger sites (household names) typically seen as having more authority

Requirements

Initial set up then reduced maintenance time

Ongoing effort required & can be labor intensive

Pay-Per-Click can be seen as a short term strategy that has higher running costs but less maintainance after initial set up. The cost of media spends can be almost prohibitive when scaling to larger markets or when trying to target vast and indistinguishable audiences. PPC is fully customisable and controllable with a clear pricing mechanism, however, the fact that the ads are easily identifiable does discourages some user from engaging with them due to a lack of trust.

Search-Engine-Optimisation is a long term strategy that requires dedication and work to implement; particularly in relation to linkbuilding. SEO will tend to provide traffic at a lower CPA as it doesn’t incur costs based on traffic volume. The number one organic position will typically have a CTR of 30-50% whereas the No. 1 position for PPC will only receive around 2.5% of clicks

Summary

These two SEM channels suit different industries in different ways, however, what is indisputable is that a combined strategy focusing on dominance of the SERP above the page break will greatly increases CTR’s. An effective integrated PPC and SEO strategy can in fact improve the performance of both channels, as can be seen in this study by Google.

The key benefits of an integrated strategy are:

Visibility

Increased CTR

Twice the data to Analyse

Short term PPC data can help inform a long term SEO strategy

Organic keywords can be tested in PPC to gauge effectiveness before launching a long term strategy

An integrateged strategy doesn’t stop there; including user experience creates a trinity. PPC and SEO are able to drive traffic, however, it is the user experience that helps convert the traffic once it has arrived. UX is able to greatly improve efficiency of the SEM and increase the viability of the spending by increasing conversion rates and therefore lowering the cost per acquisition.